(04-17-2018 01:48 PM)Kruciff Wrote:  

(04-17-2018 12:37 PM)McKinney Wrote:  It probably will take a lot of money to get to a point where we're even remotely attractive to the AAC. We need to build an IPF for sure and at this rate it could take us another 5 years to get to a point where we're consistently in contention for bowl eligibility.

I think the amount of money that needs to be thrown at the project is up for debate. If it's just the IPF then we're talking $15-20M for a really nice permanent facility or like $5M(?) for a bubble. That's quite a bit of $$$ but it's not out of the realm of reality.

If AAC isn't okay with us using an NFL stadium (like Temple and South Florida) then things get really sticky. Our stadium is "expandable" up to the low to mid 20k's using semi-permanent freestanding bleachers, and that'd be relatively inexpensive. However if we needed an expandable 30k+ stadium, a brand new stadium could be $100M+. Which is definitely out of the foreseeable budget. If the administration had $100M to invest, they'd put it into academic/research facilities over a football stadium (and rightfully so). Although we could could construct a stadium over several phases, which might make the expense a bit more palatable.

I will say, just the talk of improving on-field performance and building infrastructure is better than the alternative we've seen at UMass. We spent over hundred years (with arguably the exception of maybe a few years in the '60s and '90s) doing the absolute minimum effort. No effort to keep successful coaches, no effort to remove unsuccessful ADs and coaches, no effort to build and improve infrastructure, no effort to look at what other schools were doing, no effort to keep an eye on our conference and division affiliation.

Several programs that got in to the AAC (Tulane, SMU, Tulsa) over maybe more deserving programs have several things in common: Investment in university owned infrastructure (Tulane built a stadium to get in), investment in big name coaches in both football and basketball (Frank Heath, Larry Brown, Dunleavy, Willie Fritz, Chad Morris, Phillip Montgomery) and bring average to moderate markets to the fold (Tulsa, NOLA, Dallas).

UMass needs to do several things to be considered for the AAC:

1. Convince UConn you are valuable as a regional partner
2. Bring Army with you
3. Level McGuirk, and build anew on your own campus
4. Upgrade football and basketball facilities across the board
5. Upgrade football and basketball staff across the board.
6. Win.

But then, these strategies aren't unique to UMass... all told they could be applied to USM, ODU, Charlotte, and a handful of others... and I'd say those programs are closer to those goals than UMass, albeit nowhere near complete.